Passage of Souls
by Descendant of Truth
Summary: Kotone has a gift; she can see into the hearts of those around her. But she also has a curse; she can unwittingly take those hearts and store them inside her own. Spending her days with little contact with others, she's prepared to live her isolated life to the fullest. But how can she, when she discovers a horrible truth that could endanger both herself and those within her?
**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. All I own here are my OCs.**

 **So, yeah. I've had this idea brewing for a while now, and I figured it was finally time to share it with the world. Unlike my other stories, it's not funny. At all. But hey, I hope you still like it anyways!**

* * *

It was early in the afternoon, and the whole city was bustling. It wasn't every day that the Starlight Festival was in motion—the day celebrating the end of the now several-century-old war. It was a time for great happiness and joy, for the end of the ancient Keyblade War had signified the return of the light and an end to the darkness that had consumed their ancestors. Everyone was just happy to be alive and thriving. In fact, it was the return of said light that inspired the name for both the festival and the city; Radiant Garden.

As part of celebration for the festival, people would make their own star-shaped lanterns and light them up with a candle at nightfall, when everything would glow like one of the stars in the sky. Until then, it was customary to spend time with friends and family; nothing in particular had to be done, although most threw parties to celebrate. The idea behind it was that just spending time together would make them happy and increase the light in their hearts—the same light that founded this world.

And yet, despite the blissful atmosphere, the happy faces of the kind citizens, and the excitement for the grand celebration that was to be held in the city square that evening, one young girl was finding it to be quite difficult to join in on the holiday cheer.

She watched the people come and go from her perch near one of the many fountains, tinkering with her own makeshift lantern, which she had built from stray glass shards and a tube of superglue. She wondered how many of those smiles were forced, and how she was going to celebrate the festival without a candle to put in her lantern.

The girl was no older than six years; she had long, messy, caramel-colored hair and her clothes looked somewhat worn. She had a solemn expression on her face—one of the few in the entire city who did at the moment—and she tried her best to keep her focus on the half-finished lantern instead of the endless mass of people surrounding her. It wouldn't do to make anyone curious and try to approach her. She generally did a pretty good job at keeping herself secluded, but on a holiday like this, it was nearly impossible. The most she could hope for was to keep eye contact to a minimum and stay away from the parts of town with the most crowds.

But she supposed that sitting around without talking to anyone made her seem distraught and as though she _wanted_ to talk to people—which wasn't entirely untrue, but she had hoped that it wouldn't cause her any problems—because soon enough, someone had approached her, carefully and trying not to seem threatening. She huffed inwardly. If anyone had to go great lengths to pretend not to be threatening, it was _herself_. But she supposed that a young face like hers was hard to take seriously nowadays.

The person approaching her was a boy, much older than her but still in his teenage years. He had short, dark brown hair and round brown eyes, and he was wearing casual clothes. It looked as though he had tried to make himself look more fancy than he normally was, since he was wearing a star-shaped ornament around his neck and a keychain on his belt. The girl had seen him before, and he had rarely worn either of these things before the festival.

She wondered if that was a strange thing to notice about someone, but she supposed that she was just very observant.

"Hi there," he said in greeting, a smile on his face. "Are you working on your star lantern?"

The young girl tensed. Sure, it was obvious that she was putting _something_ together, but that didn't mean other people had to _acknowledge_ it. What was she supposed to say? 'Yeah, person I've just met, I'm working on the same thing everyone else in the whole city is working on, what do you think?' Somehow that didn't seem like it would go over well. So instead, she just replied, "Um… yes." The boy nodded slightly in acknowledgement.

"It looks nice so far. I like all the different colors," he commented. Despite his kind demeanor, the young girl felt extremely uneasy. ' _Why is he talking to me? What's he trying to get at? Just go away from me!_ '' she thought frantically. But she knew it would be both rude and draw unnecessary attention to herself if she said that, so she kept her mouth shut.

She shouldn't have been too worried—after all, she could tell that this was a kind person. It was a strange sensation, but one she was used to at this point; the sense that she could tell what someone was feeling just by looking at them. Nonetheless, she was frightened. How long would it be before something happened?

"Say," the boy started again, "I'm Kouki. What's your name?"

Oh, it was one of _those_ situations when people actually tried to get know each other. She had seen it in practice before, but why would he try to become friends with someone so much younger than him? Was it pity? It was probably pity. Nonetheless, it was generally considered polite to answer when someone asks you a question, and in the long run, it couldn't hurt to tell him her name. After all, like she observed earlier, he was the kind of person who almost always had kind intentions.

"I-I'm Kotone," she replied nervously, not sure how she was going to maintain a conversation with someone who both older than her and with the constant danger alarm going off in her head. Whatever direction the conversation went, she had to come up with an excuse to leave before something really _did_ happen.

"It's nice to meet you, Kotone. Um, I couldn't help but notice you were by yourself… do you want to hang out with some of the other kids? There's a really nice girl around your age that lives a few blocks from here." Kouki offered. Well, that was just swell. Kouki wanted to introduce her to _more_ people. While the thought of having friends was appealing in itself, she knew that it wouldn't work out.

Besides, she already knew who he was talking about—the red-haired girl who shone brighter than anyone else in the city. She was the only person she knew of that managed to not have a speck of dark emotions within her. In fact, Kotone would sometimes stay near her when she was feeling particularly upset—something about her cheery, light-filled personality put her more at ease.

Snapping out of her thoughts, she replied, as politely as she could, "Oh, no, I'm not looking for anyone. I should probably get going, though… my parents are expecting me to come home soon." That last part was a complete lie, of course, but if there was one thing people paid attention to, it was the mention of parents.

In an instant, she could tell that this Kouki person was bothered. After all, what kind of child spent the Star Festival by herself instead of the other kids or her family? He seemed like he was the kind of person who had a hard time hiding his own feelings.

"Well, okay then," he said suddenly, trying to seem cheerful and less bothered than he actually was, "I shouldn't get in the way of you getting back to your family. Sorry if I bothered you at all. Oh, and have fun at the celebration!" And with that, he started to leave. And yet, Kotone couldn't help but get the impression she had made Kouki feel guilty somehow. She would have to rectify that later. But not now. Tomorrow, perhaps, but she wasn't about to risk spending too much time with anyone at a time.

She stood up and began walking away herself, but stopped when she heard something strange. Like a faint humming sound, one that grew louder the more she listened to it. She began looking around frantically, wondering where the noise was coming from and if it was a threat. She found herself looking at the castle that towered above them in the center of the city—for whatever reason, parts of it were starting to… glow? Why would it be doing that? It was actually very pretty to look at, (although the blaring noise was still agitating to her ears) but still, why?

The glowing was a sort of metallic blue color, and she was beginning to question her own sanity. That was definitely _not_ normal, and as accustomed as she was to the concept, nothing was supposed to be abnormal but _her_. Thankfully, it turned out that she _wasn't_ going crazy, as she heard many others around her gasp in shock and fear at the sight.

The glowing suddenly faded away and in their place, strange machinery had suddenly appeared where there was none before. It was like some strange factory-castle hybrid that, to her eyes, seemed like the work of a sorcerer, and she didn't like it.

It looked wrong—it _felt_ wrong. And things like that didn't just suddenly _happen_. She was pretty much in full-blown panic by now—along with everyone else. She couldn't even tell if she was screaming or not—she was too paralyzed to acknowledge her own voice, and even if she could, she wouldn't have recognized it amongst everyone else's screams. All she knew was that the pretty, regal castle had suddenly become something… monstrous. Some parts of the castle were deformed, a mixture between carefully-placed stone walls and a mish-mash of strange, misplaced electronics.

She suddenly felt herself impact with the floor; someone must have knocked her aside in their panic. If the crowd was bustling before, it was certainly chaos now—frightened shouts, people running this way and that with a whole new desperation than there was before. Kotone didn't bother trying to stand up—with the way her legs were shaking, she wasn't even sure that she could.

Panicked thoughts rushed through her head like a wildfire, screaming at her to run away, or scream, or _something_ , but she was trembling too much to do anything. Not only that, but there were too many people… and too many of them had been around her for quite a while now.

She suddenly noticed how quickly she was breathing—if she didn't do something soon, she was going to have a heart attack. But a young, frightened mind is not so easily soothed, especially not one such as hers. Still, she tried to stand, to take deep breaths, to do something to lessen the panic, but to no avail.

And she probably would have fainted from the panic had a familiar voice not suddenly penetrated her ears.

"H-hey, a-are you okay? Kotone?" it was Kouki. Kotone looked up to see him, his face tense in fear and panic, but with a noticeable hint of concern. "C-c-come on, it's going to b-be okay, I-I can get you home if you l-like." His voice was quavering, but he still tried to sound reassuring. It was only then did Kotone realize that she was on the verge of tears; she would have tried to wipe them away if she hadn't had other much more important priorities.

"No… y-you don't have to…" she said, trying to keep her voice still. If there was one person she couldn't have around right now, it was Kouki. He had already spent enough time with her as it was.

"I-I know it looks scary… b-but look. It's not hurting anyone, is it? I could just be a magic trick, o-or something like that. Hahaha!" he let out a short laugh—it sounded half-hearted and barely had any happiness to it, but it was obvious he was trying to make her less scared. After all, the 'magic trick' explanation simply didn't cut it for Kotone, and neither did his worried facial expression.

She was going to let out a protest, something to get him to leave, but a sudden flash of light from the top of the castle caused her to yelp and instinctively wrap her arms around Kouki for protection.

 _Idiot!_ She berated herself. _You know you can't do things like that!_ And yet, at the same time, she was scared, and being able to seek comfort in someone like this was… kind of nice. But she knew it couldn't last. She drew herself away from Kouki, and was going to try to say something, but no words came out.

It turned out she didn't need to worry about that, though, because she suddenly found herself screaming at a moving shadow. And that doesn't refer to the regular movement of regular shadows—this meant that the shadow was literally forming into something else, it was no longer a two-dimensional figure, and it had grown _eyes_.

Kouki swerved around, his eyes wide, and immediately grabbed Kotone's hand and ran away with her in tow. When she proved to be too slow of a runner, he swept her off her feet and ran as quickly as he could.

* * *

The next few minutes were a swirl of colors and fear. The pale blue of the sidewalks and buildings seemed smeared with a black fog, the greens of the trees and the rainbow of flowers—all of them mixed with black and purple, and for a few moments, she could barely tell left from right.

Colors weren't the only things that mixed. Sounds, too, slurred together like some horribly-written music—terrified screams everywhere, panicked breaths and a nonstop _thump, thump_ sound that must have been Kouki's shoes pattering against the concrete.

Once she had regained a solid grasp of what was happening around her, she realized that it was raining, and Kouki had stopped running for now. They were in an old alleyway—the only place where the monsters hadn't spread to yet. He looked exhausted; they must have been escaping from those… _monsters_ , or whatever they were, for a while now.

Which brought her to an entirely different problem, aside from all of the murderous creatures and the fear and panic: she had been around the same person for quite a while now. And now she was left with an impossible situation—either leave Kouki and be devoured by those creatures, or stay with Kouki and not only put him in danger, but herself as well. Both of them could easily be killed by those things… amidst the chaos, she had seen them tear something out of the other civilians—something that she was convinced was their souls—and they would collapse without a trace soon after.

Letting that fact sink in was enough to put her to tears again. Kouki had put her down for the moment, so she just curled up on the wall and buried her face into her knees. What was she supposed to do now?

"H-hey… don't cry…" Kouki's weary voice snapped her attention back to reality. "It'll be alright…" he confirmed, although he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep his own fear out of his voice. She wanted to say something, to tell him to leave, but what good would it do? He was so set on keeping her protected… something that no one else had ever been to her before.

She looked up at him, wanting to thank him for being so protective, but stopped when she saw how wide his eyes were. If it weren't for the fact that there was no knife, she would have thought he'd been stabbed. She felt her own eyes widen in fear.

No. It couldn't be happening. Not now—not again!

But sure enough, his chest began to glow, and from it, an orb of light emerged. His eyes went dead as he collapsed onto the floor.

The entire city was desolate; the rain was pounding; and worst of all, she was all alone. There was no one to hear her cries for help. No one to see the little girl as she wept over a young boy's body as it slowly faded to black.

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 **Author's Notes: Well, what do you think? Depressing, huh? Well, I hope it's kept you interested! Please read and review! :D**


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